21 | Rayan Ait-Nouri - 2025/26

Not been at the club for long ffs and played in a competition that is equivalent of an expensive Pre-season jaunt to USA
 
Think he had a solid start to his city career, but I don't understand why we're still playing with the left back tucked instead of overlapping. Not only is it less effective but unlike in the case of gvardiol/o'reilly it's a misuse of his strengths. we've also seen glimpses of his defensive shortcomings but nothing i'm too worried about. But I want to see him get into crossing positions more often.

edit : apologies to the mods, I did not see a thread existed
 
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We buy players to use them differently. Same with reijnders as a 6. make it sense.
 
my hope is we didnt sign him to turn him into an inverted LB. it does reduce lot of his great skills. Pep had Dani Alves at Barca kind of like a prototype of modern attacking fullback, he was joining attacks on the wing, involved in lot of one twos with speed, overlapping winger, and high number of assists from him as he was great crosser.

I do think its important to get more creativity and more ways of creating goals into the side especially post KDB era, and one way it can happen is overlapping fullbacks creating extra issues for opponents pus helping the winger by not facing always 2/3 defenders but just 1/2 by an LB or RB giving them something to think about who then can arrive into the box or go outside and put in a cross or a pullback.
 
samuelyeboah said:
Think he had a solid start to his city career, but I don't understand why we're still playing with the left back tucked instead of overlapping. Not only is it less effective but unlike in the case of gvardiol/o'reilly it's a misuse of his strengths. we've also seen glimpses of his defensive shortcomings but nothing i'm too worried about. But I want to see him get into crossing positions more often.

edit : apologies to the mods, I did not see a thread existed
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Its a handful of games, i strongly suspect Pep just wants to see what hes capable of in all aspects, same with Reijnders.

If we dont want a high, overlapping fullback for a particular game, he wants to know whether he can be a viable option as someone coming inside too or whether he'd have to be replaced.

Like it or not, we know Pep decides on how we are going to play in very specific details game by game and then makes players fit that idea rather than just letting them play their natural game all the time so the more flexibility a player has, the better.

Let's wait at least 6 months before we're deciding how peps using the new guys.
 
I don't mind him playing inverted, but not in the fixed way we have done in the past.

The earlier CWC games showed a fluid interchange between the LB-LCM-LW where at times all of them played in the other 3 roles based on game state.

I think Ait Nouri and Nunes are both comfortable with this as they are quite "overall" footballers and not just 1-dimensional, like just strong or just fast etc, like you could never ask Walker or Lewis to do this, they are too lacking in particular areas, but Ait Nouri and Nunes are atleast good in all aspects.

The last CWC game, it was sorta happening in the 1st half (which maybe is not a coincidence we looked so good 1st half), then all of a sudden 2nd half he became permanently inverted with Doku wide left, no more interchange, that made no sense to me.
 
The first game with him was too good so pep had to revert back to the inverted fullback thing. Probably realized that his usual tactics is over and since he’s been so stubborn - he told himself that he can’t be wrong and went back. Hopefully AN plays as an overlapping FB because that’s his strength. Otherwise we could’ve gone for another CB for the LB position.
 
King Jay said:
The first game with him was too good so pep had to revert back to the inverted fullback thing. Probably realized that his usual tactics is over and since he’s been so stubborn - he told himself that he can’t be wrong and went back.
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Do you guys never get tired of writing miserable fan fiction like this?

At least other fantasists add a bit of titillation or general excitement. Some of you write like you crywank yourselves to sleep most nights.
 
It's still early days, but I hope Pep will quickly realise that Ait Nouri should be used as a full-back who provides width and bombs crosses into the box (which Haaland and Tijjani can easily get on the end of). He does well as an inside full-back too, but we definitely need him further up on the left, especially now that we have Marmoush who tends to cut inside. I think the reason Marmoush had a bit of a poor game last night was because he had to stay wide
 
A proper solid defender too when needed. Did everything well today, composed in everything he does.
 
While I'm still not quite a fan of him inverting vs bombing wide, I understand why Pep does it.

He is decent on the ball, so he helps overload the midfield and progress from deep.
 
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